Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-02-20
Bonnie Dundee.
Ian the Year Round. ]

Dundee is one of the most,thriving
towns in Scotland. It's bonnie Dundee,
bright, stirring, and pleasant, with a fine
flavor of tarred ropes and tanned nets,
of sailcloth and ships, apparel and tack
ling, of linen and jute, with the less
savory, and yet most welcome odor, Of
whale and seal oil, when ships come
home from their voyages to the frozen
North.
Little is left of the old towers, walls,
and mansions of Dundee, but the Cow
gate Port has been spared, more as a
religious than civic memorial for
from the battlements of the gate, in
1914, preached the famous George
Wishart to the plague-stricken who
were camped outside the wall on one
side, and on the other to those worthy
burghers who had escaped the pest,
aud who stood reverently in the street
to listen.
A quaint old story, too, is to be found
in the Chronicles of how Henry, Earl
of Huntington, brother of King Will
liam the Lion, being abroad ON the sea
returning from the Crusades, his bro
ther, the King, in Joy at his approach,
vowed that he would give him the
ground on which he should land. The
Earl landed at Dundee, and, &C OotO,
a grand church was built, whose noble
tower still remains to give dignity TO
the aspect of the busy town.
Then there was terrible storm and
sack of Dundee in the civil wars by the
soldiers of General Monk, with much
plundering of harmless citizens ire
spectiye of their political or religious
opinions while the Governors head
was struck off as a warning 10 any dis
posed to over-obstinate resistance to the
established Government.
A story of somewhat later date is the
burning of Grizel Jeffrey for witch
craft, an occasion for general holiday.
A shipmaster coming into port after
many years foreign trading noticed the
holiday aspect of the town and inquired
the cause. This was bis native town,
he said, and he had come home after
long years to see his old mother, and
make merry with his friends. and he
would be delighted to share their holi
day sports. Then the men of the port
pointed out TO him the blue cloud OF
smoke that was rising over the house
tops, and told him they were burning
Grizel Jeffrey, that notorious old witch.
At that the shipman turned pale and
fell against the rigging, when, as soon
az he could speak, he babe his men
cast of the moorings, and SO he set sail.
And then people remembered that
Goody Jeffrey had son who was a
seaman, and they guessed that this
must be he who had sailed into the
port, andsthus he had been welcomed
home.
But the saddest story of all, perhaps,
is of that Sunday just after Christmas,
1879, when in the mist, rain and storm,
and the darkness of winters night,
train containing nearly ninety per-
sons started from the south side of the
Tay bridge. This was the largest bridge
in the world perhaps-l0,612 feet in
length, divided into IS spans, of which
the widest stretched across 24j feet.
The platform was only 10 feet wide,
and adapted for a single line, and was
SO feet above high-water mark.
In the mist and rain the train de-
parted, but it never reached the further
side. There was desperate leap of
all that mass Of wood and iron and pal
plating human forms, as, with falling
girders and broken columns the whole
plunged headlong into the roaring
tide--an awful second OF the agony of
death for all those living creatures, and
then swift doom. Few fragments of
the train, and few human bodies were
recovered butsome months afterwards
the wreck of one Of the railway carriages
was found on the opposite coast Of
Norway.